Katherine Freund is one of my constituents and the CEO of an organization called ITN - Independent Transportation Network, which provides rides to seniors. Now if you are like me, you might have confused ITN with RTP - the regional transportation program that sends around those white buses and cars. But ITN is different - it's a private transportation nonprofit that actually does its work without government support. The key to everything is the credit system - of volunteer drivers who can use their own cars to provide rides, in the process earning ﻿﻿credit﻿﻿ that can be turned into later rides - either for themselves, after they get too old to drive, or for their relatives or friends. Other seniors donate their own cars to the service, in the process earning still more credits for future rides. And still others simply pay as they go, at rates that are significantly lower than taxis. As Katherine told me, "seniors have always paid for their transportation, and this gives them a chance to continue to be independent even after they stop driving themselves".

The whole concept is based on peer-to-peer association, and rooted in the notion of "paying it forward". You might ride in your former car; you might become friends with your driver. You might even be a volunteer driver in California and send the credits to a ride account that is used by your mom in Maine. I think it's extremely cool.

ITN began here in Maine, and thanks to Katherine's vision, it has spread to cities and states across the country. It's an ingenious model for service, and it fills a unique niche that complements the important services provided by other organizations like RTP. Need a ride? Want to volunteer? Click here!

I've been haunted by a conversation I had with a constituent a couple of weeks ago. She told me the story of her student loan debt, which, because she can only afford a minimum amount each month, has ballooned into a significantly larger burden now than it was when she completed her education. She trained as a nurse at USM and now works full time in that profession, providing exactly the sort of service that we need here in Maine, the state with the oldest average population in the country. She works full time and extra shifts, lives frugally by any measure, and is now facing the prospect of her daughter needing to go to college in a year or two, with her loans having grown to more than $60,000. How can a parent be expected to help a child in college when she is still coping with loans from her own education? Another person I spoke to today concurred, telling me that her loans (also, it happens, in the nursing profession) are going to continue even into her retirement.

This is simply wrong. There is no other country in the world that finances education like this. While I am not sure that a ready solution to this problem lies at the state level, I'm encouraged by Senator Angus King's proposed measure to reform student loans, providing options including a payback rate based on income, with loans being forgiven after a certain predictable amount of time. This is an encouraging step.

Today I was delighted to learn that I have received the endorsement of Portland's Voter Education Brigade! This group, an "all ages" outgrowth of the League of Young Voters, invited me in for an interview a few weeks ago, and I am honored to have won their support.

I am honored to again have received a perfect score from Maine Conservation Voters for my voting record on environmental Issues. A summary of the scoring can be found here .

The Legislature passed several pro-environment measures this spring: a bond issue for clean water infrastructure, state policy to plan for solar power, and establishment of a commission to study the effects of ocean acidification on Maine’s coastal fisheries. In addition, we put the brakes on a damaging rollback of the state’s metallic mining laws. Several good proposals, however, were passed but vetoed. Like so much of the session, we found ourselves playing defense as often as we were working to advance our policies.

Author

Erik C. Jorgensen represents Maine House District 41 - Part of Portland. This blog represents his own opinions and not those of the Maine Legislature, Maine Democrats, or anyone else. To read more about me, click here